According to Tara Burke, a Bank of America spokesperson, the Paydiant app is being trialled by employees in a three-month test at five merchant locations in the bank's headquarters of Charlotte, N.C. The trial began on Sept. 15 and will last 90 days, at which point the bank will "assess the program and determine the next steps," said Burke.

Paydiant's technology allows a consumer to pay at a store register by scanning an image with a smartphone. Paydiant's cloud-based technology interfaces with the bank's existing mobile banking applications to offer payment and redemption rewards by reading a QR code at the point of sale, according to the company.

In addition, the solution enables banks and retailers to avoid sharing sensitive customer information with intermediaries, "and allows issuers of Paydiant-powered mobile wallets to share in new revenue streams from highly targeted mobile ads and offers," the company said in a news release. It is already engaged in partnerships with other banks in some regions across the U.S.

Paydiant has already raised $19.6 million in funding as it enters the ever-crowded and competitive arena of mobile payments.

Worldwide mobile payment transaction values are expected to surpass $171.5 billion in 2012, a 61.9 percent increase from the 2011 figure of $105.9 billion, according to analyst firm Gartner, Inc. Gartner also predicts the number of mobile payment users will reach 212.2 million in 2012, up from 160.5 million in 2011.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio